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In the last decades, EU studies have increasingly broadened in terms of their theoretical and methodological approaches. By now, comparative concepts and theories are an integral part of studying the EU, which aids the study of its polity, politics, and policies. Despite the indisputable peculiarity of the EU as a political system, many scholars have stressed the value of using comparative approaches to study it. This thematic issue aims to investigate a specific case—the political system of Canada—as to its merit for comparison with the EU. While both systems have been described as sui generis in the past, forming a class of political system by themselves, recently the similarities between both have been stressed. This thematic issue gathers articles that compare different aspects of these two systems—focusing on polity, politics, and policy—to reap the benefits of the comparative approach and gain new insights into the functioning of both systems. The contributions to the thematic issue show the benefits that both Canadian political science and EU studies can gain from engaging in comparative exercises.

"In a system discredited by political corruption, the notion of bureaucratic neutrality was presented during the Progressive era as strategy to restore legitimacy in government. However, bureaucratic neutrality also served as a barrier to equity in government. This book argues that neutrality is a myth that has been used as a means to oppress marginalized communities, largely disconnected from its origins within the field of public administration. A historical perspective of how the field has understood race and gender demonstrates how it has centered whiteness, masculinity, and heteronormativity in research and administrative practices, mistaking them for neutrality in public service. Using a historically grounded positionality approach, the authors trace the myth of bureaucratic neutrality back to its origins and highlight how it has institutionalized inequity, both legally and culturally. Ultimately, the authors demonstrate that the only way to move towards equity is to understand how inequity has become institutionalized, and to constantly work to improve our systems and decision making. With constituents across the globe demanding institutional changes in government that will establish new practices and mediate generations of inequality, The Myth of Bureaucratic Neutrality is required reading for public administration scholars, practitioners, and students"--

Assessment of effectiveness of Chinese aid in competence building and financing development in Sudan by S. Nour [abstract] This paper discusses the effectiveness of Chinese aid for competence building and financing development in Sudan using new primary data at the micro level. We find that Chinese aid and loans to Sudan caused mixed positive-negative impacts. The positive impact is competence building and providing alternative complementary sources of finance to complement domestic capital and financing development projects; the negative impact is increasing Sudanese debts to China. We find that the effectiveness of Chinese aid to Sudan is undermined by offering aid tied to trade, FDI and the importance of oil to the Chinese economy. Despite the global economic crisis, China has continued to offer tied aid to maintain access to oil in Sudan. Despite a long period of economic sanctions, Sudan was able to grow thanks to the robust and increasing intensification of special economic relations with China which relaxed the development finance constraint. From the perspective of new approaches to financing development, our findings imply that even when a country is facing binding political and economic sanctions, it can still proceed with competence building and finance a high growth strategy if it is endowed with natural resources and a partner that is in need of such resources. In addition to aid in the form of financial capital, Chinese aid and development assistance include technical assistance in the form of scholarships for training and education. The outcome of Chinese aid directed towards capacity building in Sudan implies that the majority of scholarships provided for specialization fields of Engineering, followed by Science and related fields, and finally Arts, Social Science and related fields respectively, and provided for PhD degree, followed by MSc degree, research and training respectively over the period (1999-2013). Keywords: Competence building; financing development; aid effectiveness; China; Sudan.

Abstract Background Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and combating hotspots with escalating but preventable communicable diseases remain major challenges in Africa. The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) intervened to combat poverty-related diseases including malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, and to conduct multi-centre clinical trials and multi-disciplinary health research through an innovative model of regional Networks of Excellence (NoEs). Methods We participated in a quasi-formative evaluation between October and December 2011 on the 4 regional-led research networks. These included the: Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CANTAM); East African Consortium for Clinical Research (EACCR); West African Network of Excellence for TB, AIDS and Malaria (WANETAM), and the Trials of Excellence for Southern Africa (TESA) launched between 2009 and 2010. We shared a participatory appraisal of field reports, progress reports and presentations from each network to jointly outline the initial experiences of the merits, outputs and lessons learnt. Results The self-regulating democratic networks, with 64 institutions in 21 African countries, have trained over 1, 000 African scientists, upgraded 36 sites for clinical trials, leveraged additional € 24 million and generated 38 peer-reviewed publications through networking and partnerships. Conclusions The shared initial merits and lessons learnt portray in part the strengthened capacity of these networks for improved research coordination and conduct of planned multi-center clinical trials in Africa. Increased funding by African agencies, governments and international health partners will ensure sustainability of these networks for research capacity development and demonstrate their commitment to achieving the MDGs in Africa.

As higher education costs rise, many communities have begun to adopt their own financial aid strategy: place-based scholarships for students graduating from the local school district. In this paper, we examine the benefits and costs of the Kalamazoo Promise, one of the more universal and more generous place-based scholarships. Building upon estimates of the program's heterogeneous effects on degree attainment, scholarship cost data, and projections of future earnings by education, we examine the Promise's benefit-cost ratios for students differentiated by income, race, and gender. Although the average rate of return of the program is 11%, rates of return vary greatly by group. The Promise has high returns for both low-income and non-low-income groups, for non-Whites, and for women, while benefit assumptions matter more for Whites and men. Our results show that universal scholarships can reach many students and have a high rate of return, particularly for places with a high percentage of African American students. They also highlight the importance of disaggregating benefits and costs by subgroup when performing benefit-cost analysis when the treatment is heterogeneous.

This paper discusses the role of fiscal policy and fiscal institutions in managing scaled-up aid. In an environment of volatile scaled-up aid, fiscal policy formulation should be anchored in medium-term frameworks, incorporating a longer-term view of potential resource availability and spending plans. There is merit in smoothing expenditures over time so that all programs are adequately funded. The paper argues that wage-bill ceilings should be used in Fund-supported programs only in exceptional cases. The paper also discusses basic reforms for strengthening public financial management systems

AbstractThis paper assesses two innovative development financing models—specialised global partnership funds (e.g. The Global Fund) and market‐based approaches (e.g. GlobalGiving). Via a simple typology of development financing approaches these models are shown to contain distinctive and new elements. They have definite strengths, particularly in raising funds as well as unbundling fundraising from design and implementation. However, these models are not panaceas and replicate many weaknesses of 'traditional' approaches to foreign aid. Donors should carefully consider the merits of supporting new financing structures relative to including innovative design features within existing aid programmes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Main description: The ledgers of merit and demerit were a type of morality book that achieved sudden and widespread popularity in China during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Consisting of lists of good and bad deeds, each assigned a certain number of merit or demerit points, the ledgers offered the hope of divine reward to users "good" enough to accumulate a substantial sum of merits. By examining the uses of the ledgers during the late Ming and early Qing periods, Cynthia Brokaw throws new light on the intellectual and social history of the late imperial era. The ledgers originally functioned as guides to salvation for twelfth-century Taoists and Buddhists, but Brokaw shows how the literati of turbulent sixteenth-century China began to use them as aids in the struggle for official status through civil service examinations. The author describes how the responses of some Confucian thinkers to the popularity of the ledgers not only refined the orthodox Neo-Confucian method of self-cultivation but also revealed the serious ambiguity of the classic Confucian understanding of the relationship between fate and human action. Finally, she demonstrates that by the end of the seventeenth century the ledgers were used not so much to facilitate upward mobility as to promote social stability by prescribing standards that encouraged people to keep to their social places.Originally published in 1991.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Aid Process -- Introduction -- The Total Volume of Aid -- The Share Received by Different Countries -- How the Aid is Used -- Implementation and Follow-up -- Conclusion -- 3. Leverage -- Donor Self-interest -- The Interest of the Recipient -- Efficiency and Good Management -- Terms of Aid -- Multilateral and Bilateral Donors -- The Role of Technical Assistance -- The Merits and Demerits of Leverage -- Conclusion -- 4. Motives and Interests -- Politicians on the Donor Side -- Civil Servants on the Donor Side -- Politicians on the Recipient Side -- Civil Servants on the Recipient Side -- The Intermediaries -- Conclusion -- 5. The Problems of Foreign Aid -- Delay -- Lack of Results -- Inequitable Benefits -- Unwanted Side Effects -- Maintenance -- Profligate Use of Capital and Foreign Exchange -- Lack of Skilled Manpower -- The Formation of an Alien Elite -- Conclusion -- 6. Alternatives -- Trade -- Investment -- Migration -- Financing Recurrent Costs -- Financing Local Costs -- Programme not Project Aid -- Untying Aid -- Multilateral not Bilateral Aid -- Country or Sector Concentration -- Continuity within the Recipient Country -- Improved Project Identification and Preparation -- Use of Non-governmental Organisations -- Emphasis on Training -- Increasing Personal Contact -- Automatic Transfers -- 7. Conclusion -- Statistical Appendix -- Index.

Having been adopted by legislatures in over a dozen states, postsecondary merit aid programs are largely concentrated in the southeastern United States. The observed clustering pattern seems to support previous evidence that policies spread between proximate states, a phenomenon referred to by political scientists as policy diffusion. Often, however, policy diffusion is not complete, and one or more states in a region fail to adopt. By interviewing policymakers throughout the southeastern United States—including actors in the three states in the region without merit aid—the study addresses the following question: Why do diffusion pressures lead to adoption in some states but not in others? Studying state "hold‐outs" promises not only to uncover the reasons for failed legislation in specific state contexts but also to better our understanding of the limits of diffusion theory.

The economic impact of foreign aid flows to Latin America (from 1974 to 1993) is examined empirically. Regressions are run to determine whether aid is invested or consumed & whether the consumption of foreign aid is reflected in indicators of human development (infant mortality, secondary school enrollment, & life expectancy). However, no relationship is found between aid & improvements in human capital indicators. It is concluded that if continued aid to Latin America is to have a measurable economic impact a policy of selectivity (in the disbursement of aid) should be adopted. The merits of such a policy were recently acknowledged by the World Bank. 6 Tables, 3 Figures, 1 Appendix, 21 References. Adapted from the source document.

The challenges and responsibility posed on the entire international community as a result of the increasing prevalence of the global refugee population and humanitarian emergencies is ever intensifying. While in its essence humanitarian aid seeks to alleviate some of the perils that refugees face, it transpires as insufficient and unsustainable particularly when displacement becomes protracted. This article draws attention to this issue by arguing that if social protection is viewed from a transformative lens, it could be regarded as a strategic approach to reduce deprivations and enhance resilience through strengthening the link between humanitarian aid and human development. Structurally extending coordinated social protection provisions to refugees could be a pathway forward to durable solutions. This article is written as a response to the 2019 Global Refugee Forum and tackles the complex question of extending social protection benefits to refugees while simultaneously linking the need promoting resilience of the host community through developing a framework that links humanitarian social protection to human development processes.

Abstract
To say that financial aid is a key component of the college admissions process is an understatement. For the student and her family, financial aid is a way to afford quality post-secondary education that otherwise may have been unobtainable. For the college, financial aid is a method to compete for the best and brightest students. For policymakers, financial aid is a subsidy for educational expenses where constituencies often differ over its merits. This research attempts to analyze the financial aid process by considering the ability of a student to act strategically. A game-theoretic model developed by Epple, Romano, Sarpca, and Sieg (2005) is utilized and evaluated using empirical evidence from the 1996 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:96). It is shown that a student can maximize her financial aid offer by increasing the number of schools to which she has been accepted after controlling for ability, demographics, state fixed effects and institutional characteristics. A matching estimator to calculate average treatment effects and properly address endogeneity concerns.