Rethinking dependency and development between international and indigenous non-governmental organisations

This article presents a case study detailing how the Netherlands-based international NGO Terre Des Hommes (TDH) works with and impacts the indigenous Tanzanian NGO Umoja wa Maendeleo ya Bukwaya (UMABU) and the Bukwaya region that UMABU serves. The article illustrates how indigenous agency and autonomy are actualised within relationships where indigenous over-reliance and dependency are connected to Western aid organisations. The paper proposes that dependent relationships between Southern and Northern NGO partners can be negotiated by indigenous leaders in order to disseminate resources for development in indigenous communities to a greater extent than previously imagined by Western donor agencies.     

Stumbling into the Future? The Indirect Approach and American Strategy

The United States has yet to reconcile its strategic culture to the realities of the post-9/11 era. In the absence of a consensus on grand strategy, America's military and civilian leadership is arguing that in a world of “persistent conflict,” America must exercise its power in increasingly indirect ways. This essay explores the current surge of interest in the so-called “indirect approach” and its possible relevance for the strategic environment of today and tomorrow. We briefly consider a strategic framework for an indirect approach, what true implementation would take, and the attendant risks of such a path. Pursuing a global indirect approach in the absence of such a framework could send America stumbling to the farthest corners of the globe only to harm her own strategic interests.     

Individual campaign contributions in a Downsian model: expressive and instrumental motives

We investigate in a Downsian framework the possibility of and rationale for individual campaign contributions under various combinations of voters’ and candidates’ objective functions. We first show in a simple voting model that expressive motives might give rise to contributions and separated positions, while instrumental motives will not. We then show in a probabilistic voting model that both motives could lead to giving and policy divergence. However, when this is the case, positions are more separated, contributions are greater, and society’s welfare is higher when motives are expressive than when motives are instrumental.     

Voices from the Terror

Several novels have attained popularity in the extreme right subculture, most notably, The Turner Diaries—a tale of race war that convulses America. Some observers have characterized these novels as blueprints for revolution and terrorist campaigns. The medium of fiction can be an effective vehicle for propagandizing to those persons who may not be amenable to non-fiction political treatises. This article reviews some of the more popular extremist novels. By doing so, it provides insight into the worldviews and aspirations of the contemporary extreme right.     

Public interest politics,corporate governance and company regulation in Germany and Britain

This article introduces a systematic framework for evaluating the impact of public interest issues on companies through regulation and mandatory corporate governance requirements that change the nature of the firm. It finds that public interest issues that apply to the firm are becoming more important in both Britain and Germany, despite their disparate historical patterns of dealing with the company. European integration and national politics are both expanding the range of issues companies must deal with, even under the competitive pressures of globalisation, while national institutions and politics continue to dominate the manner in which most firms confront public interest issues.     

ALLOCATING CUSTODIAL RESPONSIBILITIES AT DIVORCE

The American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Analysis and Recommendations contains a set of detailed reform proposals for the allocation of custodial responsibility for children among parents, including the approximation rule . This article examines two bodies of social science evidence that explicitly or implicitly were used to justify the approximation rule, attachment theory and research and research on the impact on children of shared parenting arrangements subsequent to divorce . These two bodies of evidence used to justify the approximation rule are reviewed and evaluated to provide an assessment of its social-based rationales.     

The Rise of Collective Corruption in China: the Xiamen smuggling case

The Xiamen case, as well as several other high-profile corruption cases uncovered at the end of the 1990s, signals a new trend in collective corruption whereby private companies, entrepreneurs and organized crime groups now play an important role in initiating and coordinating networks of criminal activity. This article uses the concept of collective corruption to examine the smuggling empire built up by the entrepreneur, Lai Changxing, the network of state-owned enterprises and officials that supported and protected his smuggling operations, and the central government's crackdown. It concludes with a discussion of two other major corruption scandals, and what they say about the nature and extent of collective corruption in China. I argue that these recent cases show that corruption in China has evolved into more sophisticated, complex and destructive forms that resemble the more extreme forms of corruption found in post-communist countries where corrupt networks have been able to infiltrate and take over state institutions.     

Using Appreciative Inquiry to Engage the Citizenry: Four Potential Challenges for Public Administrators

In the United States, calls for new citizen engagement strategies have continued to grow at the local government level. One answer is Appreciative Inquiry. As part of a larger study conducted in 2007, the question was posed to public administrators, “What challenges do you see regarding using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to increase citizen participation in local government?” Findings based on a content analysis of the data identified four challenges in particular. Discussion suggests public managers need to be aware of these challenges but depending on local conditions they can be mitigated or overcome.