Reassessing the Effect of Economic Growth on Well-being in Less-developed Countries, 1980–2003

Development debates have been greatly influenced by the growth consensus: the conventional wisdom that economic growth should be the primary priority for less-developed countries (LDCs) because it most effectively improves the well-being of the world’s poor. We compare the impact of growth to other independent variables in an unbalanced panel analysis of up to 109 LDCs and 580 observations across six time points (1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2003). Our dependent variables include caloric consumption, infant survival probability, one-to-five year survival probability, female life expectancy, and male life expectancy. First, we find that gross domestic product (GDP) has significant positive effects on caloric consumption, female life expectancy, and male life expectancy. Second, GDP does not have robust effects on infant and one-to-five survival probabilities. Third, fertility, urbanization, and secondary school enrollment have larger effects than GDP in the majority of models. The more powerful effects of fertility, urbanization, and secondary schooling cannot simply be attributed to an indirect effect of GDP. Fourth, we find that dependency variables do not have robust significant effects. Fifth, over time, GDP has become much less effective at improving caloric consumption and infant and one-to-five survival. We infer that there are serious limitations to concentrating exclusively on economic growth to improve well-being in LDCs.     

Effects of profound hypothermia on the blood-brain barrier permeability in acute and chronically ethanol treated rats

This study examines the effects of profound hypothermia on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in ethanol administrated rats. Vascular permeability to intravenously injected Evans blue (EB) was quantitatively examined in the brain regions of rats. Rats were treated with ethanol acute and chronically. Rectal temperature of rats was dropped into 20+/-1 degrees C during profound hypothermia. Mean arterial blood pressure in both acute and chronic ethanol treatments plus hypothermia significantly dropped into low levels as well as in hypothermia alone (P<0.01). Hypothermia led to a significant increase in the content of EB dye in the brain regions of rats (P<0.05). Both acute and chronic ethanol treatments plus hypothermia did not lead to a significant increase in the BBB permeability against intravenously injected EB dye. We conclude that ethanol intake protects the BBB against the effects of hypothermia.     

Organizational Citizenship Levels of Physicians in Public Hospitals

The aim of this study is to define organizational citizenship levels of physicians working in public hospitals. The population of the study consists of the physicians employed in the hospitals run by the Ministry of Health in Istanbul. The Organizational Citizenship Level Scale was used for the collection of data. It was found that the participants’ organizational citizenship levels were the highest in the “conscience” subsection and the lowest in the “praising the organization” subsection. Findings of this study provide clear information for the decision-makers and hospital managers in developing working conditions of physicians in public hospitals.     

Determinants of young people’s civic and political participation in Turkey

This special section provides a timely reflection on current debates that are of extreme relevance in order to gain a better understanding of the concepts of citizenship and active citizenship in Turkey, by looking at the determinants of civic and political participation, at the patterns of political and civic mobilization and at the orientations of political behaviour. Its originality stands on the specific focus on young people in comparison to other age groups. The different papers remark upon the importance that the reframing of the notions of citizenship and active citizenship have in the Turkish context along with the determinants that make this remark more relevant than ever.     

Providing information and building capacity: interest group involvement in the application of EU law

Practical implementation has attracted significant scholarly attention in the European Union in the last decade, and the EU compliance literature started to focus more on the players in the domestic arena to help understand the application of EU law. However, a systematic analysis on interest group activities at the application stage is yet to be conducted. Relying on enforcement and management approaches, this article argues that interest groups act as providers of legal and technical information that are needed for correct application of EU law. Also, interest groups actively demand information from political actors to build internal capacity during this period. The results show that interest groups act as providers of information, but only in the national political arena. Moreover, motivation to learn is another factor that explains the level of access seeking during application, and this type of interaction takes place in both European and national venues.     

Analysis of gastrocnemius compound muscle action potential in rat after death: significance for the estimation of early postmortem interval

The estimation of postmortem interval is of great importance in forensic medicine. Changes in the properties of excitable tissue provide another possible means by which the time of death can be estimated. This paper reports the monitorization of the compound action potentials recorded from gastrocnemius muscle by means of sciatic nerve stimulation in rats before and after death. The sciatic nerve was stimulated using rectangular impulses of 0.1ms duration and intensities ranged between 1 and 100mA while the rat was alive. Subsequently, the rat was killed by cervical dislocation. The similar measurement procedure was performed at the moment of death and every 5min after sequentially. There was a progressive decline in amplitude values that began 10min after death. The decrease in the amplitude of the compound muscle action potentials (CMAP) was most prominent especially when elicited with lower stimulus intensities. The mean area of the CMAPs also began to decrease beginning from 15min after death. Fifteen minutes after death, the motor latencies began to prolong. Thirty-five minutes after death, the decline in amplitude and area of mean CMAP was most prominent as the mean motor latency. At the 40th minute, most of the CMAPs were unelicitable. During the early postmortem interval, these amplitude, area and motor latency alterations decrease in the amplitude and area, prolongation of motor latency seems to be well correlated with each other and this was statistically significant. These findings are discussed as possible basis of a forensic method for postmortem interval estimation.     

A fissure in ‘unanimous democracy’: parliamentary contestations over property rights on land in early Republican Turkey

The parliamentary politics of Turkey's one-party regime (1925–1946) has been described as a ‘unanimous democracy’, particularly on account of the absence of a voting opposition. Many scholars consider the Law for Providing Land to Farmers of 1945 as the first instance of parliamentary opposition in the one-party legislature. The current article challenges this widespread view and argues that property rights on land tended to provoke backlashes even before 1945. It examines the making of the deportation, land distribution and settlement laws of the 1920s and 1930s, all of which sanctioned intervention into property relations on land in the form of the expropriation of landowners. Going beyond an exclusive focus on voting patterns, this article traces parliamentary resistance by examining how government bills changed as they proceeded through both the reviewing committees and the general assembly. It links the birth of a full-fledged parliamentary opposition in 1945 to the previous waves of discontent and shows that property rights on land was a constant fissure in the early Republic's unanimous democracy.