A tide that does not lift all boats: the surge of remittances in post-disaster recovery in Tacloban City,Philippines

For the last forty years, remittances have been a lifeline for some Filipinos in times of crisis as well as everyday life. So, it was no surprise when the media and nongovernmental organizations credited the Philippine diaspora with playing a significant role in post-disaster recovery after Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda struck in 2013. While remittances poured in after this disaster, they were differently experienced, had different impacts, and led to uneven post-disaster outcomes. This article highlights the class-based inequalities that structure access to and mobilization of remittances after post-disaster recovery. We compare the experiences of middle- and lower-class households in three communities heavily affected by Haiyan in Tacloban City, Philippines, to investigate who benefitted and who was excluded from remittances in this post-disaster recovery. The findings of the case study shed light on wider issues of poverty, class, and vulnerability in the Philippines.     

Book reviews

Justin Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society. A Critique of the Realist Theory of International Relations, Verso Books, London, 1994, 224 pp, £12.95, ISBN 0 86091 607 3 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 86091 442 9, £39.95.

Cable, Vincent and Henderson David (eds), Trade Blocs? The Future of Regional Integration, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1994, 198 pp, £9.95, ISBN 0 905031 81 4 (pbk).

Marian A. L. Miller, The Third World in Global Environmental Politics, Open University Press, Buckingham, 1995, 181 pp, £13.99, ISBN 0 335 19500 8 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 335 19501, £40.00.

Javed Siddiqi, World Health And World Politics. The World Health Organization and the U.N. System, Hurst and Company, London, 1995, 272 pages, £32.50, ISBN 1 85065 205 8(hbk).

Donald M. Snow and Eugene Brown, Puzzle Palaces and Foggy Bottom. U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy‐Making in the 1990s, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994, 284 pp, £14.95, ISBN 0 312 08654 7 (pbk). Also hbk ISBN 0 312 10268 2.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community, Macmillan Press, Houndmills, 1994, 533 pp, £12.99, ISBN 0 333 61687 1 (pbk).

Christine Chinkin, Third Parties in International Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993, 422 pp, £45.00, ISBN O 19 825715 5 (hbk).

Mohamed Munavvar, Ocean States: Archipelagic Regimes in the Law of the Sea, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1995, 240 pp, ISBN 0 7923 2882 5(hbk).     

改说“下次”

朋友送我一盆澳洲杜鹃。这盆花刚到我家的时候,枝叶茂盛,开满了粉红的花朵。我很精心地养它,每天按时浇水,端到窗前去晒太阳。令我高兴的是,它越来越茂盛,有一次竟然同时开出了33朵花。过了大约几个月,我注意到,它好像没有以前那么旺盛了,花开得越来越少,有时候好几天才开出两朵花。于是我很着急,不知道是不是因为我的失误把花养坏了?我去找送我花的朋友,想问问她有没有什么挽救的办法。朋友让我放宽心,说:这是正常规律。每一种植物都会经历不同阶段,成熟、孕育、开花,周而复始,然后枯萎、死亡。这盆花,刚刚经过了开花期,现在它需要休养、孕…     

Horizontal coordination in cooperative federalism: The purpose of ministerial conferences in Germany

ABSTRACT

Intergovernmental councils in Germany comprise 18 sectoral ministerial conferences and the prime ministerial conference as peak organization. They complement the Bundesrat as institutions of Intergovernmental Relations in the German system of cooperative federalism, dealing with matters of shared rule as well as self-rule. Based on expert interviews among ministerial bureaucrats, this contribution finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, vertical influence and autonomy protection are not their main purpose. Rather, they serve primarily information exchange and coordination. Still, the emphasis on either influence and autonomy protection or coordination and information as well as the directions of interaction vary across policy sectors. We further investigate constitutional allocation of power and party political composition as determinants on the specific purpose of ministerial conferences. The findings suggest that the allocation of power is more important than party political composition in explaining variation between sectoral ministerial conferences.     

Couplets in Chinese Culture

Culture and tradition are the soul of a country.When a country loses its culture and tradition,it is difficult for it to make progress.Chinese people protect their culture and traditions.I have learned about Chinese culture and tradition at school.It is visible everywhere in China but I did not really understand it in the beginning.Then I realized sometimes I have to experience something in order to understand it.     

The man who envied women

Boredom is a permeating, trespassing force – an intensity not necessarily recognized as such. This essay approaches the aesthetics of political failure, and in particular, the cinematic intensities of boredom as affective expressions of post-traumatic malaise. Lou Ye’s Summer Palace (2006), one of only three Chinese narrative films to represent the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, draws upon an aesthetics of banality to dramatize the epistemological limits and resultant trauma of 6/4, a historical event subsequently repressed in mainland Chinese media. Refusing melodramatic catharsis, the film’s stalling and stupefying effects perform both the amnesiac circumstances surrounding 6/4, as well as the compassion fatigue that followed. Even more surprisingly, Lou’s overuse of sex, a dull instrument by the film’s end, constitutes Summer Palace’s privileged sight/site of boredom. Indeed, sex, rather than constituting the censored obscene act, stands in for something far more offensive. Summer Palace frenetically pivots around an open secret, the historical memory of Tiananmen, as nervous sensation is composed within and without the text, centering on women’s bodies. Drawing on close textual analyses, this essay contends that the excessive contours and shapes of the memorial wound in Summer Palace take on the particularly anxious forms of dull sex in a messy Square.     

Clinical forensic examination findings and legal outcome in cases of suspected physical child abuse

Clinical forensic examinations performed at the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Hanover Medical School between 1999 and 2008 in cases of suspected physical abuse of children were analyzed retrospectively with special emphasis on the legal consequences. Altogether, 192 children (85 girls, 107 boys) with a median age of 4.4 years were examined. In 47 cases (24.5 %), the clinical forensic examination findings were interpreted as accidental injuries, birth traumas or unspecific findings. 29 victims (20.0 %) had suffered a shaken baby syndrome. Only part of the presented cases ended with conviction, which was more likely if the victims were aged between 7 and 11 years. Prison terms of 2 years and more were imposed only if the child suffered potentially or acute life-threatening injuries or if additional anogenital lesions were diagnosed indicating sexual child abuse.