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Faculty Feature: Brian Gran, Assistant Professor Sociology Department and Member of the Mandel Center Program Faculty
Why the Need for Children's Ombudspersons? An International Perspective
Q: What is your sociological background and perspective?
A: I am a comparative sociologist whose work concentrates on law and social policies. Public and private aspects of social policies have fascinated me for some time. As a college student, I interned for a corporate lawyer who asked me to work on establishing a corporation's private pension plan. Two aspects of private pension plans intrigued me: who pays for and who owns the pension benefit. I was surprised to learn that government indirectly pays (via tax breaks) for private pensions, which means tax payers contribute to private pensions. Another surprise was that, despite making contributions, an employee did not own the pension until it vested. Later, as an attorney, I represented Social Security Disability and Retirement pension claimants. I learned that employers and employees contribute to Social Security programs, but taxpayers do not. Similar to private pensions, even if an employee makes contributions, an employee does not qualify for the pension until she or he has contributed ten years.
These experiences led me to studies of public and private characteristics of social policies, asking who benefits and loses, who falls between public and private authorities, and how public-private gaps are mended. Public and private authorities provide a wide variety of social-policy programs and services, but often gaps appear where individuals do not receive benefits, services, or protections. Children are vulnerable to falling into public-private gaps in social policies. For instance, a child's welfare usually is the responsibility of his or her parent, but when a parent fails, who is responsible? Many people would answer "the government," but the answer is much more complicated in many countries, including the United States. In response to these gaps, some governments have established children's ombudspersons' offices.
Q: How would you describe a children's ombudsperson program and why do you want to study them?
A: A children's ombudsperson is an independent office charged with monitoring and sometimes enforcing children's rights. Offices of children's ombudspersons have not been systematically studied with regard to their backgrounds, characteristics, legal powers, relationships with public and private authorities, and their effectiveness in enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
I am collaborating with Antje Daub, Michael Flatt, Lynn Gannon, and Robin Patterson, all whom are doctoral students in the sociology department's Ph.D. program, on a study of legal powers children's ombudspersons possess, their independence and decisions to use those powers, and their impacts on mending public-private gaps in social policies. A key characteristic of their office, according to the children's ombudspersons we have interviewed and studied, is their independence. Offices of children's ombudspersons are typically established by legislation and receive their budgets from legislatures, but have the responsibility of monitoring their governments' efforts in enforcing the UNCRC. Children's ombudspersons often appear to use their independence as a legitimacy tool to challenge government policies affecting children. Typically overlooked, however, is independence of private actors, especially of national and international nonprofit organizations
Q: What are the main research questions you are trying to answer?
A: The major research questions this research study is seeking to answer are: (1) Why are children's ombudspersons' offices established? (2) How do children's ombudspersons use their legal powers to mend public-private gaps? (3) Are they successful and, if so, why? To measure success, we are developing the Children's Rights Index (CRI). The CRI is a measure of children's formal rights for every country.
Q: What has your research shown so far?
A: My preliminary research indicates that national and international nonprofit organizations often lobby to establish an office of a children's ombudsperson, including its legal powers and who shall serve as the children's ombudsperson. After an individual becomes the children's ombudsperson, nonprofit organizations attempt to influence the ombudsperson's goals and decisions. We are developing an indicator to measure independence of children's ombudspersons. We are contrasting degrees of independence with weak links in independence, asking whether a weak component of independence can undermine overall independence.
Q: How has the Mandel Center supported your work?
A: With the support of the Mandel Center, I presented a paper from this work at an international conference in Oslo this last July. From this conference, I received an invitation to visit the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy. In the short term, I am submitting journal manuscripts on legal powers and formal independence of children's ombudspersons. In the longer term, I am preparing two book-length manuscripts. One manuscript presents a comparative analysis of children's ombudspersons; the other is devoted to examining the public-private dichotomy for social policies. I am seeking to expand the research on weak links of independence to other institutions, including central banks, auditors, judiciaries, and independent regulatory authorities.
Brian can be reached at 216.368.2694 or brian.gran@case.edu
