Going Easy and Going After: Building Inspections and the Selective Allocation of Code Violations

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 594-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Bartram
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Building Inspectors ◽  
Code Violations ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship

Sociologists have demonstrated how public and private actors reproduce economic and racial inequality, by protecting the values of lucrative real estate, enforcing the tastes of elite and middle–class populations, and unfavorably sorting low–income and minority residents. Building inspections and code violations affect each of these processes. Yet, we know remarkably little about how decisions about building code violations are made. Drawing on fieldwork with building inspectors and statistical analysis of data on building violations in Chicago, I find that building inspectors allocate code violations in surprising ways: They go easy on low– and moderate–income property owners and go after professional landlords and wealthy homeowners. I join others in urging sociologists to look beyond assumptions about the unified logic of the growth machine and fully unpack the relationship—in terms of potential and parameters—between frontline agents of the state and inequality.

scholarly journals Informal, Inquisitorial, and Accurate: An Empirical Look at a Problem-Solving Housing Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (04) ◽  
pp. 1058-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica K. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Informal Justice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Substantive Justice ◽  
Code Violations ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Improved Accuracy ◽  
The Relationship

Substantive justice is often seen as elusive in courts dominated by low-income individuals. Complex court rules, coupled with pervasive lack of counsel, can make it difficult for the traditional adversary process to identify and redress legitimate grievances. This article takes on the social problem of substandard housing and examines whether inquisitorial procedure has the potential to produce accurate outcomes in a tribunal dominated by the unrepresented. Relying on in-court observations of nearly 300 hearings, and a longitudinal review of nearly seventy-five cases, this article surfaces the regularized procedures utilized by a purported “problem-solving” housing court, and theorizes that the inquisitorial features of judicially controlled investigation and enforcement may motivate landlords to repair substantiated housing code violations. This article adds nuance to our understanding of informal justice by identifying the hidden procedural formalisms that may guide alternative decision-making processes. Furthermore, it evaluates the relationship of one iteration of experimental formalism to substantive justice, and suggests that inquisitorial procedures may be correlated with improved accuracy in case outcomes.

scholarly journals Economic Performance and Competitiveness Indicators: The Case of African Economies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vít Pošta ◽  
Marta Nečadová
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Basic Relationship ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Relationship

This paper presents a statistical analysis of the relationship between economic performance and competitiveness indicators to address the question of the extent to which competitiveness indicators provideuseful information when assessing economic performance. The analysis was performed on various examples of African economies. The possible relationships between economic performance and competitiveness indicators were examined by extending a basic relationship between economic performance per capita and investment by competitiveness indicators. The models were estimated by means of an Arellano-Bond estimator. The authors detected many statistically significant relationships between economic performance and competitiveness indicators in the cases of both the whole sample and specifically middle-income economies. However, in the case of low-income economies there are no discernible relationships between economic performance and the information included in the competitiveness indicators. The paper contributes to the analysis of the economic performance of African economies, for which the empirical evaluation of possible links between economic performance and competitiveness indicators is altogether missing.

A House but Not a Home: How Surveillance in Subsidized Housing Exacerbates Poverty and Reinforces Marginalization

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cayce C Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Subsidized Housing ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
At Home

Abstract A robust literature has shown that surveillance disproportionately targets poor people of color through the criminal justice and welfare systems. However, little empirical research traces the mechanisms through which surveillance reproduces inequality in other domains, such as subsidized housing, where private actors including property owners and landlords do the work of surveilling tenants. In this article, I apply the theoretical lens of surveillance to the case of subsidized housing to explore the symbolic and material consequences of being monitored at home. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 67 low-income Black mothers in the Sunnyside neighborhood in Houston, Texas, I argue that the scrutiny mothers face in and around their homes reproduces inequality through two key mechanisms. First, surveillance creates a home environment devoid of privacy, that mothers liken to being in prison. Mothers interpret this scrutiny as an effort to control and contain them because of their race, reinforcing racialized notions of presumptive Black criminality. Second, surveillance heightens the material risk for mothers of being caught breaking rules, which paves the way for eventual eviction and exacerbates poverty. Although mothers develop strategies to counter and at times resist disciplinary monitoring, these efforts come with drawbacks that can make surviving poverty harder. Taken together, these findings suggest that being surveilled at home not only diminishes low-income Black mothers’ status in society, but also pushes them into deeper economic precarity. This research extends our understanding of the reach of surveillance into the lives of the poor even in spaces considered to be private.

scholarly journals A gênese do ProEMI na perspectiva cognitiva das políticas públicas

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Eliza Bartolozzi Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Education In Brazil

This article aims to analyze the process that gave rise to the Innovative Higher Education Program (ProEMI) as a way of understanding the actions taken by public and private actors in the construction of a new project for secondary education in Brazil. The analysis seeks to understand the cognitive and normative framework that gave rise to and legitimized this educational policy, considering that policy is the result of a process of interaction and relations of force. ProEMI is a policy that seeks to transform the public action of managers, teachers, and students in the country's high schools. The study examines the period 2003-2016 and was developed in the cognitive theoretical perspective of public policies, a perspective focused on understanding the formulation and implementation of public policies based on the relationship between politics and the construction of social order and not just as a troubleshooting mechanism. We find that ProEMI originates from the public actions of a number of actors that construct and accept a matrix of interpretation, resulting in the emergence and legitimization of the choice of a public policy that calls for a counterhegemonic high school.

scholarly journals Hospital Characteristics and the Patient Satisfaction in Lahore, Pakistan

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-69
Author(s):  
Rehan Ahmad Khan Sherwani ◽  
Sajjad Ali Gill ◽  
Shumaila Abbas ◽  
Sana Saeed ◽  
Hira Shahid
Keyword(s):  
Patient Satisfaction ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
Public And Private Hospitals ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Hospital Characteristics

Objective: Organizational set up of a hospital is broadly responsible to the transfer of services, their usefulness, and structural performance in patient outcomes. In current research, we study the relationship between hospital characteristics and several dimensions of patient satisfaction. Methods: Cross sectional data of 1680 patients admitted in 14 public and private hospitals located in Lahore, Pakistan was collected through a self-administered questionnaire during March, 2015 to August, 2015. Pearson and Spearman correlation techniques were used in SPSS 21 to find the desired relationships. Results: Patients were significantly (p<0.05) less satisfied in old aged hospitals as compared to the hospitals recently start operating. High income patients were less satisfied with the hospital than the low income patients. In addition, patients with long duration of stay at hospital were more satisfied than the short stay. Conclusion: Patient satisfaction is a key component in choosing a hospital for receiving services and also for recommending it to others. It indicates the service quality as well as its delivery. A common tool to improve the quality of care in hospital is to conduct a patients’ satisfaction survey to explore the factors and areas affecting the satisfaction level and also to find out the reasons for dissatisfaction.

Analytical Capabilities of the Concept of "Competitiveness" in the Study of Public Administration Efficiency

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Oleh Zubchyk ◽  
Kyrylo Esennikov
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Efficiency ◽  
Country Competitiveness ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship

The article analyzes various approaches to understanding the effectiveness of public administration, which are in foreign and Ukrainian scientific thought. The purpose of the article is to show that administrative efficiency is a component of the general social efficiency of public administration, so it can be studied with the help of analytical tools of competitiveness. The study found that administrative efficiency is often understood as the effectiveness of the organization and functioning of public administration. Administrative efficiency is also understood as the efficiency of management bodies and officials. The authors emphasize that the principles, criteria and factors of the study of effectiveness are very vague. This affects the objectivity of the reflection of the qualitative result of the activities of the public administration body. The scientific novelty of the study is that the authors offer new tools for the study of administrative efficiency. It competitiveness of the state. “Competitiveness” in the context of studying the effectiveness and efficiency of public administration, the subjects of public administration is not considered deeply in the Ukrainian science of public administration. Moreover, in Ukraine, the effectiveness of public administration is increasingly associated with the competencies of civil servants. The authors do not agree with this position and suggest a deeper analysis, firstly, the relationship between public administration efficiency and the country’s competitiveness and, secondly, a deeper study of the analytical capabilities of the theoretical and methodological construct “competitiveness”. Conclusions. As a result, the authors argue that the task of administrative efficiency as an indicator is to reflect an understanding of the activities of institutions, which depends on the efficiency and behavior of both public and private actors, a legal and administrative basis within which individuals, firms and governments interact. and it determines the quality of public institutions. Keywords: country competitiveness, efficiency, public administration, administration, state policy, concept.

scholarly journals The Interaction of Private and Public Governance: The Case of Sustainability Standards for Palm Oil

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Brandi
Keyword(s):  
Palm Oil ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Regime Complex ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Private Certification ◽  
Sustainability Standards ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Abstract By providing insights into the interaction between private-driven and public-driven governance initiatives in the context of the “Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO) and the “Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil” (ISPO), this article sheds new light the interaction between private and public governance. It investigates how the relationship between the RSPO and the ISPO evolves over time and who and what drives this evolution. While the interaction between these standard schemes has initially largely been characterized by competition, it has become more collaborative and also coordinated in nature. This article argues that the experimentalist architecture of palm oil governance has fostered mechanisms for coordination across public and private certification schemes and has helped to join up the separate components of the regime complex through productive interactions. At the same time, several gaps and challenges remain, especially in light of the different interests of the multiple public and private actors involved in palm oil.

Unbundling the Relationship between Authoritarian Legislatures and Political Risk

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan M. Jensen ◽  
Edmund Malesky ◽  
Stephen Weymouth
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Empirical Relationship ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Statistical Association ◽  
Corporate Insiders ◽  
Expropriation Risk ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship

A strong statistical association between legislative opposition in authoritarian regimes and investment has been interpreted as evidence that authoritarian legislatures constrain executive decisions and reduce the threat of expropriation. Although the empirical relationship is robust, scholars have not provided systematic evidence that authoritarian parliaments are able to restrain the actions of state leaders, reverse activities they disagree with, or remove authoritarian leaders who violate the implied power-sharing arrangement. This article shows that authoritarian legislatures, by providing a forum for horse trading between private actors, are better at generating corporate governance legislation that protects investors from corporate insiders than they are at preventing expropriation by governments. The statistical analysis reveals that the strength of authoritarian legislatures is associated with corporate governance rules and not expropriation risk.

Realizing the Rights Revolution: Litigation and the American State

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 222-245
Author(s):  
Sarah Staszak
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Policy Enforcement ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Multidisciplinary Group ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Private Litigation ◽  
American State

The implementation and enforcement of civil rights laws in the aftermath of the mid-twentieth-century rights revolution has been a prominent concern for a multidisciplinary group of scholars. This article reviews a recent literature that is devoted to better understanding the dynamics of judicial authority and enforcement power and, in particular, how courts are frequently empowered to enforce laws through complex interactions with an array of public and private actors. The article emphasizes new books by Charles Epp and Sean Farhang, which each examine different features of this enforcement process. In The Litigation State: Public Regulation and Private Lawsuits in the U.S. (2010), Farhang explores the frequency with which Congress has chosen to enforce its civil rights statutes through incentivizing private litigation. In Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State (2010), Epp examines how civil rights are enforced and transformed through the relationship between administrators, activists, and lawmakers within bureaucratic organizations. Together, these books expand our understanding of the politics and processes of implementing rights in practice and, more broadly, challenge and enrich our perspective on the effectiveness of the American state in enforcing rights. The often complex series of self-conscious legislative, judicial, and administrative choices and interactions necessary in order to deliver rights protections requires that we view policy enforcement from a broader institutional and political perspective. From that perspective, we can see that effective implementation is far from automatic.

scholarly journals Rival Worlds and the Place of the Corporation in International Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 141-174
Author(s):  
Sundhya Pahuja ◽  
Anna Saunders
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Transnational Corporations ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
North And South

Struggles ‘over’ international law in the period between 1955 and 1974 should be understood not as a battle to control a pre-existing international law, but as marking a series of encounters between rival practices of world-making, each travelling with rival accounts of international law. The question of how to conceptualize the corporation, and its proper relation to law and state, was a key element of those rival accounts. In this chapter, we trace the (successful) effort to establish the UN Commission on Transnational Corporations, and the (unsuccessful) attempt to draft a binding convention. In this telling institutional moment, the struggle over the proper understanding of the relationship between international law, the state, and the corporation, which travels was also a struggle over the authorship of worlds, and the authority to govern them. Paying attention to such practices shows us that the battle lines were drawn in ways that upset the comfortable rehearsal of a North-South divide. Anti-colonial struggles, the incipient ‘Cold War’, the invention of ‘Development’, and the implementation of a (Marshall) plan to (re)construct Europe produced unexpected commonalities that included coalitions across North and South and instructive alliances between ‘public’ and ‘private’ actors. Slowing down our study of this moment reveals that much of what was at stake then remains so today, and that other worlds are still possible.

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