From Development to Empowerment: The Self-Employed Women's Association in India

Since the 1970s, development experts have increasingly focused on how development policies and strategies affect women in developing countries. In recent years, the emphasis has included empowerment, which increases women's decision-making capability and well-being. This essay is an account of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India, a trade union for self-employed women since 1972. It analyzes the strategies that SEWA has used to mobilize and empower self-employed women in India, using materials and data collected on a field visit in 1998.     

Unpacking the Social Origins of Terrorism: The Role of Women's Empowerment in Reducing Terrorism

The author's prior cross-national research found a negative relationship between the percent of the workforce that is female and terrorism. One explanation of this finding suggests that women are violence-averse and work to mitigate acts of political violence. Alternatively, women in the workforce may simply proxy for an economy with robust employment with fewer grievances or proxy for modernizing forces (e.g., democracy, secularism) that moderate traditionalism. The author examines the relationship between women in the workforce and terrorism and finds that while modernization factors are important, terrorism is nonetheless explained by the unique nonviolent influences of women in public society.     

Gender-Based Violence Prevention Workshops: An Experimental Evaluation of Efficacy

Gender-based violence has become an increasingly visible and salient public problem. In the Fall of 2015, the University of Connecticut’s Violence Against Women Prevention Program (VAWPP) implemented interactive workshops in first-year experience (FYE) classes to reduce rape myth acceptance, improve knowledge and understanding of the University’s affirmative consent policy, and increase confidence in interpreting cues related to sexual consent. This randomized experimental design tested whether these outcomes were realized as a result of the workshops. In almost all instances, the workshops substantially and statistically significantly decreased students’ rape myth acceptance, increased their knowledge and understanding of consent, and improved their confidence in cue interpretation.     

两岸共同市场:理论与实践分析

两岸建立共同市场符合经济全球化和区域经济整合的时代浪潮,是台湾经济发展的现实需要,也是两岸共同繁荣的现实条件。两岸共同市场的建立要根据两岸的具体情况,主要通过推动两岸经贸正常化、建立两岸自由贸易区及全方位的经济整合三个步骤来完成,既要体现包容性,也要反映出渐进性。两岸共同市场的建立应该从新功能主义吸取理论营养,也要从欧洲整合的实践中获取经验借鉴。     

The IMF Forever: An Analysis of the Prolonged Use of Fund Resources

Considerable concern has been expressed about the prolonged use made of International Monetary Fund (IMF) resources by a number of member countries. Some commentators have seen this as being fundamentally at odds with the role of the IMF as a source of temporary balance of payments support and as one aspect of mission creep by the Fund. The perceived importance of the issue is reflected by the fact that the first report of the Fund's Independent Evaluation Office focused on it. This article provides a detailed analysis of the prolonged use of Fund resources. It assesses the extent to which it is a problem and draws on available empirical evidence (both qualitative and quantitative) to isolate the causes of prolonged use. It concludes by examining the policy questions to which prolonged use gives rise.     

An Analysis of Reconciliatory Mediation in Northern Albania: The Role of Customary Mediators

Blood feuds are still festering wounds in northern Albanian society. This study will describe the process and the mechanisms utilised by traditional mediators in resolving blood feuds in northern Albania. It will describe the practice of mediation in northern Albania, and will discuss the reasons why people resort to traditional mediators in blood feuds, what their roles are in the process of mediation, forgiveness and achieving peace and what norms or values are used to influence the parties to make peace.     

The Social Construction of Slovakia as a Donor and its Power Effects

This article shows the power effects of Slovak development cooperation discourses. It focuses on how the Slovak population is constructed as ‘willing to help’, and the effects of this construction on the legitimation of the current regime and on the construction of the Slovak identity as developed. The article further shows the unequal relationship between ‘old’ and ‘new’ donors, how transition experience enables this relationship, and the power effects of the discourse of donor effectiveness in Slovakia.     

当前国际反恐行动的前景分析

“9·11”事件后,国际反恐行动已进行了九年。虽然世界大多数国家依据联合国安理会决议采取了一系列的政策与措施倾力反恐,但恐怖活动仍有增无减,其中一些具有相同“诉求”、“旗号”、“土壤”的恐怖势力相互呼应、融合,不断以各种形式在不同地区疯狂报复,逐渐上升为全球形态的恐怖主义威胁,成为伴随新世纪第二个十年的浓重阴影。     

Public Service Performance and Trust in Government: The Problem of Causality

Abstract

Concerns for restoring citizens' trust in government are at the core of public sector modernization. Public distrust is often blamed on the bad functioning of public services, and in political discourse well‐functioning public services are said to create trust in government. This is a very rational and mechanistic reasoning, only part of which corresponds to reality. The link between performance and trust can only be made when very specific conditions are present. The core of the discussion deals with causality: it is obvious that performance of the public administration has a certain impact on trust in government, but existing levels of trust in government may also have an impact on perceptions of government performance. In this article, we outline a framework for research on this performance–trust relation.     

The al Houthi Insurgency in the North of Yemen: An Analysis of the Shabab al Moumineen

The Yemeni government has fought an insurgency in the north of Yemen against a group called the Shabab al Moumineen, (Believing Youth) since 2004. The insurgency is portrayed by the Yemeni government in the press as a localized phenomenon led by the single al Houthi family and state that their ranks have been decimated by near-continuous fighting. However, the al Houthi Insurgency, led by the Shabab al Moumineen, is far more than a localized uprising: it is a full-blown insurgency–and one that Yemen's government and people may not be prepared to combat. This article explains the origin of the Shabab al Moumineen and conveys the importance of this conflict in Yemen and its potential multiple impacts on the broader Middle East.     

冷战后美印关系转向分析

冷战后,美国为填补苏联解体后南亚地区形成的政治真空,竭力同南亚地区进行政治合作,实行军事渗透和民主扩展战略。同时,出于反恐需要,美国一直在拉拢巴基斯坦、印度等南亚国家进行军事合作。作为南亚地区最有影响的大国,印度也欲借助美国势力扩大自身的国际影响力,实现＂入常＂目标,努力成为世界体系中新的一极。为达到双方相近的地缘战略目标和国家利益,美印在冷战后进行了战略调整,实现了历史性的关系转向。     

The PKK Problem: Explaining Turkey's Failure to Develop a Political Solution

This article discusses why Turkey has failed to propose an effective political solution of the Kurdish problem. It is argued that Turkey's failure to propose an effective political agenda is the main explanation of why Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan (PKK) insurgency has been rampant for so long. Turkey's commitment to militaristic methods worsened the Kurdish problem by creating deeper social problems. Furthermore, it is argued that the explanations tendered also point out the important factors that may affect the fate of any political agenda on the Kurdish problem, including that of the recent Kurdish initiative of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.     

日本民主党党首选举透析

2010年9月14日,日本民主党党首选举大战落幕。菅直人以721分大幅领先小泽一郎的491分,成功连任民主党党首,继续担任日本首相。菅直人连任民主党党首既出人意料又在意料之中,所谓出人意料,是因为在选举投票一周以前,人们对选情的分析还是以小泽作为民主党内最大集团的实力为基础的,但是,临近投票时,得到民意支持的菅直人便逐渐胜券在握了;     

The Pedagogy of Science and Environment: Experimental Evidence from Peru

In today's knowledge-based societies, understanding basic scientific concepts and the capacity to structure and solve scientific questions is more critical than ever. Accordingly, in this article we test an innovative methodology for teaching science and environment in public primary schools where traditional (teacher-centred) teaching was replaced with student-centred activities using LEGO kits. We document positive and significant improvements of 0.18 standard deviations in standardised test scores. Such positive results are mainly concentrated within boys that were located above the median of baseline academic performance.     

评析“中国模式”

随着中国成功应对金融危机,“中国模式”再度成为热点,其中关于“中国模式”的界定、特点、教训等问题的争论异常激烈,对此,本文对一些常见问题陈述己见。