Environmental sanitation and pollution control measures in the Odaw-Korle River catchment,Ghana

This article reports on a study that sought to understand the major factors to consider in changing poor environmental sanitation practices in urban communities in Accra, Ghana. The study focused on three main issues: the drivers of sanitation and pollution control measures in the communities; community members’ perceptions on the influence of poor planning on environmental sanitation and pollution; and how existing local governance arrangements influence environmental sanitation and pollution control. It found that efforts are made at the city, community, and individual levels to control poor environmental practices. In order to control environmental pollution, policy initiatives on sanctions should be coupled with the provision of efficient sanitation facilities and services.     

超越西半球思想(摘译)

半个多世纪以来,有关西半球的思想(根据这一思想,拉美和加勒比国家同美国和加拿大成为区别于世界其他地区的一个具有共同价值和利益的整体)是美国对拉美基本立场的主要先决条件。同时,它维系美国对拉美外交政策的框架,以它为理由,建立了美洲国家组织、美洲开发银行和一系列其他     

Books in review

His publications include The Ways Out: Utopian Communal Groups in an Age of Babylonand Gone From the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History.     

Linking Leader Social Skills and Organisational Health to Positive Work Relationships in Local Governments

This study examines the links between leaders' social skills, organisational health (decline) and positive work relationships. In particular it tests whether leaders' social skills are more strongly associated to work relationships when the organisation's fiscal health is more precarious. Using data from both surveys and annual financial statements of 103 public sector organisations, the results indicate that a leader's social skills and organisational fiscal health are positively related to work relationships. However, the interactive effect of leaders' social skills and organisational fiscal health on positive work relationships was not significant.     

Social Norms Theory,Enforcement, and Management Concepts: An Analysis of Local Smoking Ban Ordinances

Although there is substantial research on the consequences of smoking and the economic loss resulting from tobacco use, there is a scarcity of work on the enforcement of smoking ordinances at the local level. As municipalities around the country pass ordinances restricting smoking in public places, research should be conducted to understand enforcement outcomes. This article examines the management concepts being employed by managers in the enforcement of smoking ordinances. This article shows that management concepts are salient in policy enforcement and are employed to manage smoking enforcement ordinances. The theory of social norms is used to explain this phenomenon.     

The managerial skills of the top management team and the performance of municipal organisations

This paper examines the extent to which the managerial skills possessed by top management teams affect the performance of municipal organisations in Israel. We evaluated both perceived (education, employment, and culture, recreation and sport services) and objective (collecting efficiency ratio and surplus (deficit) ratio) performance measures. In general, the results show that the managerial skills possessed by the top management team explain variance in organisational performance. Interestingly, structural context plays an important role, especially for performance measures that are potentially less changeable in the short term (collecting efficiency ratio). Managerial skills are a good predictor of performance measures (surplus (deficit) ratio) that can be changed in the short term rather easily, and explain variance in municipal services, especially when the top management team views them as important and highly valued by residents.     

Book reviews

Terrell E. Arnold, The Violence Formula: Why People Lend Sympathy and Support to Terrorism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988. Pp.224. £15.50 (paperback).

Richard H. Shultz, Jr., The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices and Regional Comparisons. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1988. Pp.283. NP.

Charles W. Sutherland, Disciples of Destruction: The Religious Origins of War and Terrorism. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Press, 1987. Pp.451. NP.

Maxwell Taylor, The Terrorist. London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1988. Pp.205. £21.95.

Marc A. Celmer, Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. Pp.132. $29.95 (cloth).

Geoffrey M. Levitt, Democracies Against Terror: The Western Response to State‐Supported Terrorism. New York: Praeger Publishers and The Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Washington Papers/134, 1988. Pp.142. $32.95 (cloth); $9.95 (paper).

D. Michael Shafer, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp.331. $34.50.

Charles Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars: Counterinsurgency in the Twentieth Century. London: Faber, 1986. Pp.220. £14.95.

Duncan M. Perry, The Politics of Terror: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movements, 1893–1903. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp.257. NP.     

Comment on ‘terrorism and democracy’

The December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 raises an important legal problem for decision‐makers contemplating retaliation against such acts of terrorism. Conceivably, retaliation could conflict with and help erode international norms of self‐defense. Counter‐terrorist experts and government officials espousing the use of force have minimized, if not ignored, this potential conflict and its negative impact on world order. On the other hand, the 1986 US raid on Libya and the 1985 Israeli raid on PLO headquarters in Tunisia reveal that under limited circumstances force would be deemed appropriate. The informal adjudication of these incidents by relevant international actors suggests a tolerance for the resort to force in the US case and ambivalence in the Israeli case. The US and Israeli cases guide a subsequent discussion of the conditions under which the use of force against terrorist bases in response to terrorist attacks could be legitimated. The resort to force against such activity, it is argued, would have to meet the test of necessity, including: (1) a previous and ongoing series of terrorist attacks, and demonstrated responsibility for those attacks by the actor, state or non‐state, against whom force is used; (2) immediately expected or imminent terrorist attacks endangering human life; and (3) the absence of non‐forcible remedies effective in terminating the terrorist threat. In addition the amount of force would have to be proportional, limited to targets responsible for specific terrorist activity and limited by the objective of terminating that threat.     

BIS/BAS Variables as Moderators of the Rumination-Intimate Partner Violence Link

Although cognitive rumination is related to violence perpetration, not all people who ruminate become violent. Four personality variables—impulsivity, anxiety, anger-in, anger-out—were tested as possible moderators of the link between the tendency to ruminate and the frequency of intimate partner violence (IPV). Variables related to the Behavioral Activation System (anger-out and impulsivity) were predicted to strengthen the rumination-IPV link; whereas measures related to the Behavioral Inhibition System (anger-in and anxiety) would suppress this link. As predicted, anger-out, anger-in, and impulsivity moderated the relation between rumination and IPV. No evidence was found for suppressor variables. Thus, appetitive drives appear to amplify the effect of rumination on violence. Clinically, therapeutic techniques that address rumination, anger, and impulsivity may help to reduce IPV risk.