In two decades since the Maastricht Treaty, multi-level governance (MLG) has developed as a conceptual framework for profiling the 'arrangement' of policy-making activity performed within and across politico-administrative institutions located at different territorial levels. This contribution examines the ways in which the MLG literature has been employed, effectively taking stock of applied research to date. It identifies five main uses of MLG and the different focus of emerging research over time. Considering the most recent scholarship, the contribution explores possible new directions for research, in light of global governance, culminating in a 'bird's eye view' of MLG over 20 years.
Cohesion Policy accounts for the largest area of expenditure in the EU budget. Because of its scope and redistributive nature, evaluation is particularly important. Policy analysis tends to overlook the evaluation stage. Few empirical studies seek to apply theory to EU policy evaluation. This article questions the relevance and usefulness of theorizing evaluation practice, exploring positivist, realist, and constructivist perspectives upon approaches to evaluating Structural Funds Programmes. It illustrates how political science theories can provide scholars with useful insights into the way EU policy evaluation is carried out. It develops a toolkit for analyzing real‐world approaches to evaluation and then applies it to three separate Cohesion Policy programmes. The analysis shows how, from a theoretical perspective – and contrary to the mixed methods rhetoric of the European Commission – positivism remains the dominant approach when evaluating the Structural Funds and considers why this is so, identifying the ability to demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness, cost, influence, and evaluation culture as key characteristics.
The 13‐item Emergency Developmental Assets Profile measures the well‐being of children and youth in emergency settings such as refugee camps and armed conflict zones, assessing whether young people are experiencing adequate positive relationships and opportunities, and developing positive values, skills, and self‐perceptions, despite being in crisis circumstances. The instrument was found to have acceptable and nearly identical internal consistency reliability in 22 administrations in non‐emergency samples in 15 countries (.75), and in 4 samples of youth ages 10–18 (n = 1550) in the emergency settings (war refugees and typhoon victims, .74) that are the measure's focus, and evidence of convergent validity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed acceptable model fit among those youth in emergency settings. Measures of model fit showed that the Em‐DAP has configural and metric invariance across all emergency contexts and scalar invariance across some. The Em‐DAP is a promising brief cross‐cultural tool for assessing the developmental quality of life as reported by samples of youth in a current humanitarian crisis situation. The results can help to inform international relief program decisions about services and activities to be provided for children, youth, and families in emergency settings.
This study examines the psychometric properties and applicability of the Measure of Diverse Adolescent Spirituality (MDAS), including the factors of transcendence and fidelity, across 2 samples of adolescent youth from low-and middle-income countries (Mexico and El Salvador). Drawing on relational developmental systems metatheory, spirituality is conceptualized as experience of and response to one's perception of transcendence. Although an increasing number of spirituality measures exist, few are theoretically predicated and developed for use with adolescents with various spiritual orientations. We present data testing the MDAS across 2 youth samples, aged 12 to 15 years, derived from previous studies conducted in Mexico (n ϭ 365; M age ϭ 13.65 years) and in El Salvador (n ϭ 220; M age ϭ 12.98 years). We confirmed the measurement structure of the MDAS and tested for between-groups measurement invariance across the two samples. Invariance was established across the Mexico and El Salvador samples, providing initial evidence regarding the usefulness and applicability of the transcendence and fidelity components of the MDAS across these samples. Implications are discussed regarding the use of a multidimensional measure of spirituality that assesses both spiritual experience and commitment among adolescents.
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