Adoptees' portrayal of the development of family structure

Young adult adoptees and nonadoptees provided retrospective accounts of family relationships from infancy to young adulthood. Adoptive families were portrayed as more cohesive and adaptable than nonadoptive families. Adoptive fathers were recalled as being closer to their children then were nonadoptive fathers in the years preceding adolescence. Within the same time frame, adoptive mothers were drawn in a less hierarchical relation to their children than were other parents. Also, while adoptive males saw themselves as presently unconnected to their adoptive parents, adopted females perceived themselves as more connected to their parents in the present than any other period of time. Openness of communication and acknowledgment of difference in adoptive family formation varied with graphic retrospective accounts. Results were considered in terms of discontinuities between reported observations of adoptive families and adoptees' personal reflections on family developmental history.Received PhD in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Book. Research interests: adoptive family relations, social attributions of children and their parents.Received M.A. from the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1. Research interests: development of identity, adoption.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Toronto. Research interests: attribution, jealousy, parents' theories of child psychology.     

State Capacity,Regime Type,and Sustaining the Peace after Civil War

About half of the nations that experience civil war eventually relapse into renewed conflict within a few years after the original war ends. This observation has motivated a stream of research into the factors that affect the risk of peace failure in the aftermath of civil war. While the outcome of the previous civil war—for example, military victory versus peace agreement—structures the post-war environment in ways that affect the risk of peace failure, the capacity of the post-war state to enact and implement policies that affect the incentives for and capacity of groups to undertake armed violence as a means of advancing their interests should also affect the risks of peace failure. Using Geddes’ categories of nondemocratic regime types, we will present a theory of how different regime types have varying capacities to repress and/or implement accommodative policies that affect the risk of peace failure. We test propositions derived from this theory with a series of event history models. Our findings suggest that while peace agreements significantly increase the duration of post-civil war peace, peace agreements involving some types of nondemocratic regimes actually increase the risk of post-civil war peace failure.     

The Durability of Imposed Democracy

Why do imposed democracies endure and how do policy choices by imposing states affect durability? To study these questions, we formulate expectations linking durability to structural domestic conditions, the level of domestic security in the state into which a polity is imposed, the policies of imposing states, and the regional environment within which an imposed democracy is nested. We use event history to test our expectations on a sample of democracies imposed during the twentieth century. We find that relatively immutable, structural conditions, such as ethnic cleavages, economic development, and prior democratic experience strongly influence the durability of imposed democracies. While some policy choices made by imposing states can impact the survival of imposed democracy, they do so only modestly relative to the environment in which a democracy is imposed.     

Right place,right time: Increasing the effectiveness of agricultural development support in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper suggests that smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are well placed to seize the opportunities from expanding global and regional demand for agricultural products but that this will require a shift from extensive to more intensive production systems. The ability of SSA's smallholder farmers to increase on-farm investments in productivity is, however, constrained by their capacity to manage the risk-return trade-offs in moving towards intensified agriculture. While stakeholders are increasing their investments to assist smallholders in SSA to participate in integrated supply chains, the returns in terms of technical and financial results from these investments are generally lower than in other developing regions. This paper suggests that this is, at least in part, a consequence of problems associated with the role of spatial and temporal coordination in program delivery. Hence, much more focus needs to be devoted to delivering goods and services for smallholders at the right place and the right time, and this should be better monitored and evaluated in the context of development programs.     

Shea butter: connecting rural Burkinabè women to international markets through fair trade

Processed by rural West African women and desired by wealthy Northern consumers of natural beauty products, shea butter seems a prime candidate for fair trade, yet to date there has been little study of the industry. This article analyses the opportunities and constraints of the development of fair-trade exports of shea butter from Burkina Faso, taking into account the context in which shea is produced and sold locally and internationally, the concept of fair trade, and the impact of gender relations on shea production. Although a definitive positive or negative determination cannot be made, given the complex and divergent factors affecting the potential international market and the production process, the author finds that the development of the fair-trade shea butter industry in Burkina Faso has great potential. However, such development must occur with restraint and consideration of possible challenges and limitations, in order to remain sustainable and viable for rural female producers.     

David Riesman: A Personal Appreciation

David Riesman, the Harvard sociologist, rose to eminence in the 1950s as one of America’s most influential “public intellectuals,” gaining renown as principal author of the must-read sociological classic of the time, The Lonely Crowd. In that work, Riesman accounted for something of a sea-change in American life, marked by his famous distinction between inner-directed and other-directed character-types, and in such a convincing fashion that the book became a watershed in post-war America’s understanding of itself. Beyond that, Riesman continued to carry out urbane studies of a wide-ranging array of subjects, all the while actively engaged in the major political–ideological–ethical controversies and torments of his time. As something of a principled yet reasoned “Establishmentarian” contrarian, Riesman extended the work of such incisive social thinkers as Tocqueville, Max Weber, Veblen, and George Orwell. In this personal appreciation, Michael Delaney charts his acquaintanceship with Riesman, going back to the early 1960s (Riesman acted as a kind of mentor to Delaney at a distance; the two never met in person and their association was carried on solely through letters spanning some three decades). The essay surveys Riesman’s intellectual legacy as a self-conceived ethnographer of American life, and dwells on his “exceptionalism” as a generous, caring, high-minded man of principle, discerning judgment, and exemplary character.

Internecine strife in trade union organisations: status,competition and the effect of industry rationalisation and neo-liberalism

Internal conflict in trade unions has been the subject of considerable academic interest. Often described as intra-union tensions, the basic divergence in priorities and concerns between union officialdom and their members on the shop floor has inspired a multiplicity of pioneering workplace studies and theoretical frameworks. However, while these hierarchical divisions in trade union organisations have received concerted attention, another manifestation of intra-union discord remains relatively under-explored. Inter-sectional or ‘horizontal’ conflict can be described as two sets of workers from different trade groups within the same union which are embroiled in competition or rivalry, usually in the same workplace. Although the loosely associated concept of sectionalism was identified as a re-emerging trend in British trade unionism in the 1960s and 1970s, there has been little attempt to document how conflict can occur between two sections of workers working side-by-side. This article will present a case of horizontal conflict from the British dock industry and consider under what circumstances and pressures the phenomenon is likely to occur. The two sections featured historically had an uneasy relationship and rationalisation of the industry, allied with the neoliberal restructuring of the British economy in the 1980s, exacerbated this. In these contexts, workers began to exhibit greater levels of group self-interest which amplified inter-sectional tensions further.     

Convention on laundering,search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime

Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime