Suchergebnisse

The institution of polytechnic education in Portugal allowed an effective democratization of access to higher education. However, this process took time to implement and was not free from persistent dichotomies with its similar university system. It unquestionablethat, the institution of the binary higher education system, allowed a redistribution of the regional offer and the possibility of socioeconomically disadvantaged sectors of society access to higher education, contributing to mitigate geographic, socialand economic dichotomies. In this reflection, we intend to address the specific case of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, as the first institution of this teaching subsystem to be implemented at national level. We start from data obtained in investigations that took place between 2006 and 2020, seeking, in a longitudinal perspective,verify changes in the social profiles of its students, their motivations in accessing education and professional'sexpectations after obtaining a graduate degree. The results show an increase in the representation of the finalists from classeswith low economic and qualification resourcesand a decrease from themiddle class,the persistence of a regional demand for higher education and the existence of high expectations aboutthe importance of a diploma in their professional future.

Over the past three decades, advanced industrial countries have witnessed a decline of citizens' confidence in the core public (Miller 1974; Niemi et al. 1989; Dalton 1999; Nye 1997; Norris 1999; Newton 1999; Newton 2006) and a wide range of private institutions (Lipset and Schneider 1983; Dogan 1994; Listhaug and Wiberg 1995; Dalton 1996). This erosion of confidence in the major institutions of society has been explained as a result of both contextual government ineffectiveness and poor macroeconomic outcomes (Lewis-Beck 1988; Norpoth 1996; Newton 2006; Polavieja 2013; Magalhães 2014, 2016; Quaranta and Martini 2017; Teixeira et al. 2014) and as a consequence of deterioration in the quality of government performance (Aarts and Thomassen 2008; Holmberg and Rothstein 2012; Rothstein 2009, 2011; Rothstein and Teorell 2008; Wagner et al. 2009). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

European integration has had a dual impact on border regions. On the one hand, borders were physically dismantled across most of the EU's internal territory. On the other hand, they have become a fertile ground for territorial co-operation and institutional innovation. The degree of cross-border co-operation and organization achieved varies considerably from one region to another depending on a combination of various facilitating factors for effective cross-border co-operation, more specifically, economic, political leadership, cultural/identity and state formation, and geographical factors. This article offers a conceptual framework to understand the growth and diversity of cross-border regionalism within the EU context by focusing on the levels of and drives for co-operation.

Paper prepared for the international conference Corruption Control in Political Life and the Quality of Democracy: A Comparative Perspective Europe – Latin America, ISCTE, Lisbon, 19-20 May 2005 ; In recent years, governments and legislatures have made an unprecedented effort to improve regulatory systems of political financing which had been perceived by many as fraught with corruption. Some countries have been more sensitive to the problem than others given the nature and extent of occurrences, but the successive waves of reform show how difficult it has been for the political class to arrive at an adequate control response. The reform panorama of the 1990s has been characterised by incremental, short-lived and non-comprehensive articulation of control instruments and monitoring/enforcement shortcomings. The general regulatory context was one of reforming to address scandal and an increasingly discontented public opinion towards parties and their representatives. Despite different national responses and understandings of the major issues of concern, there has equally been a convergence of the type of measures adopted and an increasing cross-country transfer of knowledge about the panoply of instruments available. What this paper will argue, however, is that "similarities" concern more the form rather than the substance of control. The transfer of regulatory instruments has taken place faster than the expected convergence of standards of conduct. Drawing from different regulatory experiences, the article deals with a series of interrelated issues of political financing regulation: liberal versus regulatory approaches to political financing; public versus private modes of political financing; balancing revenue and expenditure; rules of publicity and publication of accounts; making parties accountable internally and externally to monitoring bodies; matching penalties to offences. The aim is to provide a general reflection of the general features of the law and practice of political finance as a preliminary step towards more general conclusions about the challenges facing political financing regulation today. In short, the article attempts to address two overarching questions: Do laws on political financing suffice to constrain party related illegality? Why certain countries do better than others in face of the degree of cross-country transfer of knowledge and regulatory innovation achieved in recent years?

Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are facing mounting pressure from national governments, public opinion, donors and international organizations to demonstrate objective results. Debates on the performance of ACAs tend to devote little attention to the causal structure of performance and often take place in a context in which the agency is absent or unprepared to refute allegations of inefficiency and institutional failure loosely formulated against its existence. The aim of this paper is to discuss issues of institutional failure by focusing on the politics and processes underlining performance evaluations of ACAs. Why is it important to evaluate the performance of institutions? How does performance relate to legitimacy and how have ACAs been performing along the three dimensions of legitimacy? What indicators have been developed by agencies and what do they measure? Finally, to what extent evaluation procedures are fundamental to the work and durability of ACAs?

One distinctive feature of the anti-corruption activity of the 1990s is the rise of new players, such as specialized anti-corruption bodies. Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are public bodies of a durable nature, with a specific mission to fight corruption and reducing the opportunity structures propitious for its occurrence in society through preventive and/or repressive measures. Independently of their format and powers, ACAs encounter various constraints to their mandate, which explains the meagre results obtained by some of them: difficulties (technical, statutory or cultural) in unveiling corruption via complaints; difficulties in obtaining information about corruption and its opportunity structures from other state bodies/agencies; and difficulties in establishing a good working relationship with the political sphere. The burgeoning literature on corruption suggests that the most important issues are the incidence of the phenomenon itself (causes, contexts, processes and effects). Instead, this article argues that anti-corruption activity should now be regarded as an important object of study in its own right. The purpose of this paper is to understand the rise, future, and implications of this new kind of "integrity warriors" and to locate them in the evolving doctrine of corruption control.

The anti-corruption activity of the 1990s is characterized by the rise of new players, such as specialized anti-corruption bodies. Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are public bodies of a durable nature, with a specific mission to fight corruption and reducing the opportunity structures propitious for its occurrence in society through preventive and/or repressive measures. Independently of their format and powers, ACAs encounter various constraints to their mandate, which explains the meagre results obtained by some of them. This introductory paper tries to understand the rise, future, and implications of this new kind of "integrity warrior" and to locate them in the evolving doctrine of corruption control. The objective of this edited volume is to re-launch the debate on ACAs as the most innovative feature of the anti-corruption movement of the last two decades.