Russian central government budgeting and public sector reform discourses : Paradigms, hybrids, and a “third way”

Author's accepted version (post-print).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Public Administration on 17/10/2017, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01900692.2017.1383417.Available from 18/04/2019.This study explores how public sector reform discourses are reflected in Russian central government budgeting. Through the lenses of institutional logics, Russian central government budgeting is considered to be a social institution that is influenced by rivaling reform paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State, and New Public Governance. Although NPM has dominated the agenda during the last decade, all four have been presented in “talks” and “decisions” regarding government budgeting. The empirical evidence illustrates that the implementation of management accounting techniques in the Russian public sector has coincided with and contradicted the construction of the Russian version of bureaucratic governance, which is referred to as the vertical of power. Having been accompanied by participatory mechanisms and a re-evaluation of the Soviet legacy, the reforms have created prerequisites for various outcomes at the level of budgeting practices: conflicts, as in the UK, and hybridization, as in Finland.acceptedVersio

The Functions of Accounting Revisited - New Meanings and Directions

This chapter reviews various meanings ascribed to accounting and the ways in which it functions. The targeted time period for the review commences from the publication of Mellemvik’s et al. article in 1988. The chapter contains a conceptual discussion on accounting and its functions and urgently calls academia for more research in this area. The main findings suggest that, while many functions identified by Mellemvik et al. (1988) still persist today, more complex images have come into existence recently, such as a stabilizing mechanism, translation of interests into «facts», a mediation process, a displacement mechanism, cultural carrier, and as a way of constraining organizational functioning. The chapter proposes some fruitful areas for further research

Russian public sector reform: The impact on university accounting

The last few decades have witnessed substantial efforts to reinvent the state worldwide. The Russian state is no exception to this global trend. At the outset of a new millennium, the need for renewal of the post‐Soviet model of the state has been acknowledged, and an up‐to‐date reform package has been promoted by the central government. This has encompassed the reconstruction of public sector accounting. Given the paucity of consistent research efforts on the topic, this article seeks to describe and analyze, and by so doing, contribute to knowledge about Russian public sector accounting in times of change. To tackle the general purpose, two levels are incorporated in this study to link reform initiatives for the government as a whole with those endeavours to implement them in one state‐sponsored university of Russian tertiary education. The major questions to be addressed are of whether, why, and how changes at the central government level have penetrated down to the university and extended to its accounting system. The evidence gathered in this paper reveals that a new Russian public sector ideology has markedly been affected by overseas developments in the shape of large international organizations. However, no compelling evidence has been documented in this research as unveiling that changes at the macro‐level have penetrated down to the university to any significant extent. This study concludes that launching a new version of accounting by the Russian state can be regarded as more of a symbol of legitimacy for the university rather than of an actual financial management tool. First published online: 14 Oct 201

Reconstruction of primary vertices at the ATLAS experiment in Run 1 proton–proton collisions at the LHC

This paper presents the method and performance of primary vertex reconstruction in proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment during Run 1 of the LHC. The studies presented focus on data taken during 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=8 TeV. The performance has been measured as a function of the number of interactions per bunch crossing over a wide range, from one to seventy. The measurement of the position and size of the luminous region and its use as a constraint to improve the primary vertex resolution are discussed. A longitudinal vertex position resolution of about 30μm is achieved for events with high multiplicity of reconstructed tracks. The transverse position resolution is better than 20μm and is dominated by the precision on the size of the luminous region. An analytical model is proposed to describe the primary vertex reconstruction efficiency as a function of the number of interactions per bunch crossing and of the longitudinal size of the luminous region. Agreement between the data and the predictions of this model is better than 3% up to seventy interactions per bunch crossing

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Achieving international biodiversity targets: learning from local norms, values and actions regarding migratory waterfowl management in Kazakhstan

1. Migratory species are protected under international legislation; their seasonal movements across international borders may therefore present opportunities for understanding how global conservation policies translate to local-level actions across different socio-ecological contexts. Moreover, local-level management of migratory species can reveal how culture and governance affects progress towards achieving global targets. Here, we investigate potential misalignment in the two-way relationship between global-level conservation policies (i.e. hunting bans and quotas) and local-level norms, values and actions (i.e. legal and illegal hunting) in the context of waterfowl hunting in Northern Kazakhstan as a case-study. 2. N Kazakhstan is globally important for waterfowl and a key staging area for arctic-breeding species. Hunting is managed through licences, quotas and seasonal bans under UN-AEWA intergovernmental agreements. To better understand the local socio-ecological context of waterfowl hunting, we take a mixed-methods approach using socio-ecological surveys, informal discussions, and population modelling of a focal migratory goose species to: (1) investigate motivations for hunting in relation to socio-economic factors; (2) assess knowledge of species’ protection status; and (3) predict the population size of Lesser White-fronted Geese (LWfG; Anser erythropus; IUCN Vulnerable) under different scenarios of survival rates and hunting offtake, to understand how goose population demographics interact with the local socio-ecological context. 3. Model results showed no evidence that waterfowl hunting is motivated by financial gain; social and cultural importance were stronger factors. The majority of hunters are knowledgeable about species’ protection status; however, 11% did not know LWfG are protected, highlighting a key area for increased stakeholder engagement. 4. Simulations of LWfG population growth over a 20-year period showed LWfG are highly vulnerable to hunting pressure even when survival rates are high. This potential impact of hunting highlights the need for effective regulation along the entire flyway; our survey results show that hunters were generally compliant with newly introduced hunting regulations, showing that effective regulation is possible on a local level. Synthesis and applications. Here, we investigate how global conservation policy and local norms interact to affect the management of a threatened migratory species, which is particularly important for the protection and sustainable management of wildlife that crosses international borders where local contexts may differ. Our study highlights that to be effective and sustainable in the long-term, global conservation policies must fully integrate local socio-economic, cultural, governance and environmental contexts, to ensure interventions are equitable across entire species’ ranges. This approach is relevant and adaptable for different contexts involving the conservation of wide-ranging and migratory species, including the 255 migratory waterfowl covered by UN-AEWA (United Nations Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds).Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin