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- Dual vocational training, Higher education, Permeability, Institutional change (1)
- The implementation of the European Court of Human Rights judgments on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey (1)
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- vocational training ; higher education ; Europe ; Germany ; France ; Austria ; Europeanization ; Bologna process ; Copenhagen process (1)
This chapter examines business lobbying at the WTO. It argues that the role of companies in multilateral trade is tightly linked to the evolution of the trading system, with the most decisive influence during the creation of the WTO institutions. In an initial phase, business lobbying concentrated on tariff barriers. As the GATT expanded its scope during the Uruguay Round, large US companies became very active participants and crucially shaped the agenda, in particular with respect to service trade and intellectual property rights. In other areas, however, active lobbying was less effective, most notably investment protection and textiles. With the establishment of the WTO, lobbying has begun to partially shift to the supranational level. Some relationships exist between the WTO secretariat and companies, but the most important new pillar of political activity relates to dispute settlement. At the same time, the WTO secretariat tries to reach out to a more diverse set of stakeholders. In many ways, the influence of global companies on WTO affairs is much more indirect today than it was during its creation.
Neo-liberalism has had one central message for the state: scale back, cut back, cut out, transform. This brings to mind Winston Churchill's reply to an opponent who asked, ‘How much is enough?’ to Churchill's repeated push to spend increasingly more on defence in the 1930s. Churchill's rejoinder came in the form of a story about a Brazilian banker with whom he had just had lunch. The banker had received a cable informing him of the death of his mother-in-law and asking for instructions. He cabled back: ‘embalm, cremate, bury at sea; leave nothing to chance’.
This take on neo-liberalism – as burying the state – is certainly exaggerated because neo-liberalism comes in many different forms with many different policy applications. Only the recommendations of the most radical strands come close to the Brazilian banker's response to his mother-in-law's death. Yet the story as a metaphor for neo-liberal views of the state nonetheless somehow rings true. This is largely because neo-liberals have been more anti-state in their rhetoric than in their actions.
The state has been neo-liberalism’s bête noire, as its main focus of attack, because neo-liberals – whatever their differences – have viewed the state as consistently doing too much in the wrong ways with the worst consequences not only for the markets but also for democracy, by endangering individual freedom through its interventions. As a provider of public goods, the state had to be scaled back to leave room for the market, which would assure more efficiency. However, the state has also been neo-liberalism’s greatest conquest, as its main locus of action, because it has been primarily through the state that neo-liberals have been able to realize their vision(s).
El Cuerpo de Gerentes Públicos de SERVIR nace de un proceso de aprendizaje enriquecedor que supone un reto para la reconversión de la burocracia nacional tradicional hacia una moderna y más eficiente a partir de experiencias latinoamericanas similares. SERVIR, mediante esta experiencia, nos demuestra que la política pública no es un proceso de una sola dirección, que las fases pueden variar y que la creatividad es un aspecto fundamental para imaginar opciones y alternativas frente a un número de retos que la gestión pública nos presenta. Pero no solo es creatividad, también se trata de instinto al identificar los precisos momentos en los que apostar por un proyecto y cuándo salir.
Crónica de un Conflicto anunciado. El caso del conflicto social en Bagua (5 y 6 de junio de 2009)
(2013)
Los acontecimientos que se suscitaron el 5 de junio de 2009 en el poblado amazónico de Bagua presentan una serie de antecedentes, decisiones y estrategias adoptadas por parte del Estado y a una serie de actores políticos que hacen que su estudio sea particularmente interesante. Nos encontramos frente a un suceso que cambia la manera de entender y manejar los conflictos sociales en la política nacional.
[en] Die europäischen Bildungsminister beschlossen 1999 einen einheitlichen europäischen Hochschulraum zu schaffen; der so genannte Bologna Prozess wurde in Gang gesetzt. Mit der Unterzeichnung der Kopenhagener Erklärung nur drei Jahre später entschlossen sich die Nationalstaaten, auch im Bereich der beruflichen Bildung stärker zusammenzuarbeiten. Vor allem soll die nationale wie internationale Vergleichbarkeit von Bildungsabschlüssen verbessert werden. Beide Prozesse zielen darauf ab, Durchlässigkeit zwischen den organisatorischen Feldern berufliche Bildung und Hochschulbildung zu erhöhen, und zwar mit Hilfe von gemeinsam entwi- ckelten Standards wie dem Europäischen und Nationalen Qualifikationsrahmen, einem System zur Validierung und Anerkennung unterschiedlicher Lernformen, der Ermöglichung flexibler Bildungswege und der Einführung von Kreditpunkte- systemen (Powell/Solga 2008, 2010, 2011).
Heute, nach einem Jahrzehnt seit Beginn dieser Prozesse stellt sich die Frage, wie diese in den europäischen Nationalstaaten bisher schon gewirkt und wie sie das Verhältnis von Hochschul- und Berufsbildung verändert haben – Veränderungen, die mit vielfältigen Implikationen für die Bildungs- und soziale Mobilität einherge- hen können (Bernhard/Powell/Graf 2010): Die Frage nach Durchlässigkeit zwi- schen beruflicher und Hochschulbildung ist dabei insbesondere deswegen wichtig, da stratifizierte (Aus-)Bildungssysteme ohne Brücken zwischen einzelnen Bildungs- sektoren den möglichst gleichen Zugang zu Bildungs- und Beschäftigungsopportu- nitäten behindern.
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have traditionally provided a large proportion of their workforces with qualifications obtained in the dual vocational training system. However, due to the growing demand for abstract and codified knowledge, all three countries aim at increasing the permeability and individual mobility between the dual training sector and the higher education system. In this chapter we analyse the ways in which Germany, Austria and Switzerland have tried to establish institutional linkages between dual vocational training and higher education. We begin by discussing options for creating such linkages: (1.) upgrading of vocational education and training courses, (2.) introducing dual courses of study, (3.) facilitating attendance of general upper secondary schools for people with vocational qualifications, (4.) enabling the parallel acquisition of a dual vocational training qualification and a higher education entrance qualification, (5.) allowing admission to higher education on the basis of prior dual vocational training qualifications and a certain amount of work experience, and (6.) recognising prior learning as an element in higher education programmes. Our analysis shows that, recently, Germany has relied strongly on the admission to higher education based on vocational training certificates in combination with work experience. Switzerland and Austria are rather pushing the comprehensive introduction of programmes that enable the parallel acquisition of a dual vocational training qualification and a higher education entrance qualification. Finally, we raise questions about the risk of institutional ambiguity and institutional task overload
Obsessed with the preservation of national unity and homogeneity, the Turkish state has since its inception had little tolerance for Kurdish demands for greater legal recognition and a measure of autonomy. However, its 1987 decision to give its citizens the right to petition the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to enhance its chances for membership to the European Union (EU) obliged the state to confront, at the transnational level, the Kurdish demands for human rights protection and equal treatment. The cases taken to the ECtHR by Kurdish civilians revealed that cloaked in the language of ‘war on terrorism’, the Turkish military had committed egregious violations including the forced displacement of civilians , the destruction of property, the burning of forests, as well as extra-judicial killings, disappearances and torture. Turkey’s EU candidacy increased the existing international pressure on the government to revise its mode of dealing with the insurgency and with Kurdish political and cultural demands more generally. The EU demanded
that Turkey first and foremost execute the ECtHR’s judgments on Kurdish issues, but also grant the Kurds limited linguistic rights in order to fulfil minority rights protection as part of the membership accession criteria. Yet, as argued in this chapter, although there has been some improvement, the problem has not been eradicated nor has there been any substantive change in government policy on the Kurdish question.